


Something Within Us

by Callisto



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Coda, Episode Related, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Season/Series 02, episode s02e10 Hunted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-08
Updated: 2011-04-08
Packaged: 2017-10-17 18:19:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/179822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callisto/pseuds/Callisto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“I don’t want to be what stops this for you, Dean.”</i></p><p><i>Not the best opening in the history of the world, but it’s enough to pause Dean’s hand on the click-and-close of his favorite sawed-off.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Within Us

**Author's Note:**

> Love and thanks to Mara for the beta. Spoilers for 'Croatoan' as well as 'Hunted'.

_Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change.  
-Thomas Hardy-_

The Winchester equivalent of a heart-to-heart sometimes comes about when the motel beds are like this - too close together for them to sit anything other than on the ends, or as they are now, side by side on one of them. Sam has learned the hard way that any chance he has of getting emo out of his brother expands exponentially once the space between the beds narrows and the possibility of eye contact disappears.

He should start something now, while their knees are almost brushing and Dean’s got the weapons bag unzipped at his feet. He hasn’t apologized properly yet for not giving Dean the one thing he asked for by the river after that whole virus debacle, and this might explain why Dean’s not saying a word. Sam doesn’t need to look to his right to know the thunk and glide of a Glock barrel coming undone when he hears it. Dean’s dipping down every minute or so to remove, take apart, clean up and reconstruct whatever comes to hand out of the duffel. Sam closes his eyes, rubs a hand across his forehead, and thinks there might be a life-lesson in there somewhere. Which is not a thought he’s planning on voicing aloud any time soon. Much better to keep his mouth shut, his tired feet on the floor and just lay back slowly on the bed, right arm outstretched behind his brother.

He figures the bed’s just about wide enough to take it, and he really does not have the energy to get up so he can stretch out lengthways on the other one. The bones under his cast are singing from connecting too hard with Gordon’s jaw, the cuts on his face are dried and sticky, and he’s got a bruise so deep and wide between his shoulder blades that he can feel Gordon’s fist in his lungs every time he breathes.

And, of course, like icing on one seriously fucked-up cake, Dean thought he was dead. He’d managed to grind that much out in the car on the way back here, hands wrenching into the steering wheel as he spat the words across the distance between them. Worst two fucking minutes of his brother’s life, apparently.

So as much as he would like to, Sam cannot lie back and let the sound of metal on metal at his side take him down, no matter how familiar the comforting pull of it. Instead, with an elbow propped on each knee, he stares at the beer bottle he’s rolling in his hands and remembers something Jess used to say about not letting the sun go down on anger. Which at the time was sweet and dorky, and meant little to him other than great make-up sex, but which seems to be driving through him now like some kind of moral imperative. He wants to bring Dean in, bring back what they were before John Winchester’s whispers damned them both.

“I don’t want to be what stops this for you, Dean.”

Not the best opening in the history of the world, but it’s enough to pause Dean’s hand on the click-and-close of his favorite sawed-off.

Sam hears the gun go back in the duffel, and he picks at the Miller label. He doesn’t think Dean’s noticed, but he hasn’t actually drunk any beer since that horrible day by the river. He remembers the sound of water, roaring in his ears as Dean’s words settled in deep, his stomach pooling all that beer to instant acid while his blood thumped so hard he thought he might pass out before he could reach out and punch his brother.

He did neither, and the desire to puke or punch has long gone. But that acid churn is still there sometimes, like a lick of poison just below his skin. He clears his throat, picks at the ‘M’, and takes his best shot.

“Back in Rivergrove last week, when I was trying to save you, make you leave with the others, you just... Dean, you tossed the keys of the Impala at that guy like it was a rental, then you locked the damn door and gave up on yourself. You looked me straight in the eye and told me you don’t want to go on. This job, this... _mission_ you’ve loved your entire life, man... and you tell me you don’t want to go on.” Sam swallows, shaking his head, “Dean, what am I supposed to do with that?”

The thwack of a rock salt shell slamming into a chamber answers him and he looks right, catching a muscle jump from jaw to temple as his brother reaches down into the duffel again. His own pulse responds, fueling him on.

“And then you start giving me that crap about the Grand Canyon, and... and freakin’ Amsterdam, and us taking a vacation, and I’m sitting there, feeling weirded out, thinking it’s about you and Dad and the demon, and what you think Dad did for you... only guess what? Turns out it’s about me, about whatever shitty destiny is out there waiting for me, and about us checking out and trying to run from it. And by doing what exactly, Dean? Sitting out in the desert in Arizona? Getting stoned and watching the sun set behind a fucking windmill?”

Sam’s turned a little more toward Dean now, arms outstretched to make his point. His brother, meanwhile, is still dipping up and down into the weapons bag. Dean rummages, pulls out a knife, a whetstone, and mutters.

“Dude. _What_?” asks Sam, seconds from grabbing the knife out of his lap and kicking the damn bag out of reach.

“I said, the other way around sounds cool. How about sunsets and stoned in the desert?”

“Not funny, Dean.”

“Huh. I thought the sunset thing was kinda-”

“Dean!”

“What? What do you want from me here? Dude, you’re the one who took off. Don’t you get on your high horse with me about runnin’ anywhere. Least I’m planning on taking you with me.”

That’s the crux and Sam knows it. Even without Dean laying the knife aside and finally looking at him. He watches Dean swallow, turn away, and scrub a hand slowly over his mouth. It’s a gesture timelessly Dean for Sam, one that still makes him smile no matter what, because Sam himself would mimic and practise it on his homeroom peers all those years ago. Not that he really understood the gesture at the time - other than his totally cool older brother did it a lot.

Now he knows.

“Dude, look. I shouldn’t have... I know you’re pissed at me, but Jesus, Dean, all you could talk about was staying still. Didn’t you notice? I couldn’t even sit still in the car after you told me.” Dean’s head is down again, but there’s no movement to the bag. Sam takes a deep breath for the next part because he wants to keep his voice steady and fuck, it’s hard to even think about this shit still, never mind say it out loud. “You tell me I’m going darkside, you tell me Dad’s dying wish was for you to kill me... and then you tell me to hole up with you and do nothing. I’m sorry I left like that, man. Truly. But you even look like you’re giving up hunting over any of this and I’ll do it again, I swear. I need... shit, I need so much right now from you Dean, I know. Just... dude, don’t back away--”

“Save you.” It’s quiet and steady, and brings him up short as only Dean can sometimes.

“What?”

Dean’s head comes up and he turns to meet Sam’s eyes.

“Dad’s wish--and the one I’m following, by the way--is the one to _save_ you, Sammy. And I will, so that’s a done deal and not worth one more dark and dreary thought in that freakishly large head of yours. But you gotta not do what you’ve been doing, bro. No more of this solo crap, Sam. I swear I’ll throw out every weapon, stuff you in the trunk, and drive to Acapulco you pull that shit again. As for Rivergrove, don’t you ever-- _ever_ \--ask me for a loaded gun and then tell me to leave you.”

Dean’s on his feet now, gesturing back at Sam every now and then while he talks and turns in the small room. “After every goddamn thing this life has taken from me, do you honestly think I’m going to hand my little brother a gun and walk off into the sunrise while he leaves his brains on the floor somewhere behind me? Christ, Sam. What did I ever do to get you thinking like that?”

It’s Sam’s turn to look down and swallow hard when Dean snaps out that last question right in front of him. There’s a sudden pause, and Sam can’t help it; he closes his eyes and waits for Dean’s breathing to calm above him. He hears a sigh and knows without looking that Dean is scrubbing a hand down his face again.

“I get it, Sammy. I do. And I hear you.” Dean’s voice is quieter now, almost a benediction over Sam’s bent head. “I promise you we’ll find answers. You want to look for Ava? Fine. We will, Sam. We will both fucking look, okay? You want to hunt along the way, also fine. Just... just no more solo shit. Please.”

Sam looks up at that, mouth open. But Dean holds his palms out, anticipating. “Yeah, yeah. Me too. No more solo shit. You can have all my dirty little secrets, Sammyboy. Well, except a bunch of phone numbers and websites you’re still too young for.”

And like that, because Dean’s half-smile is willing it so, a rock slides off his heart and soul and Sam feels the corners of his mouth tug up into the first smile in what feels like forever.

It hurts, though.

“Ow...nooo...”

He’s forgotten his cuts.

Dean sighs. “Such a wuss. Go clean yourself up, will you? The kit’s in the bathroom.”

He should, he really should. Then he can give in to this eye-stinging tiredness and just sleep all this away for a while.

Only...

“No.”

“’Scuse me?”

He smiles wider, cracking though the dried blood on his lip and opening the cut up a little. He doesn’t mind, he’s about to put a lifetime’s worth of being the little brother to good use.

“You do it. You go to the bathroom and get the stuff and bring it here. C’mon. I’m tired. I don’t wanna get up. My arm hurts, my head aches, and these cuts and bruises are all from totally saving your ass today.”

Dean stands there a minute, surveying him from head to toe, then shakes his head in clear disgust, making more than a few choice comments. But they’re said on the way to the bathroom, and before Sam’s even shrugged off his jacket Dean is back, tilting his head, calling him Samantha, and smoothing away all that dried blood with warm water and a sure touch.

Another life-lesson thinks Sam, smiling.

And this time the smile doesn’t hurt.

*****


End file.
